


Five Times Tsuyoshi Saito Encountered His Future Wife

by White Aster (white_aster)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Courtship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-17
Updated: 2010-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/pseuds/White%20Aster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saito, the woman who caught his eye, and a very proper Japanese courtship.  With yakuza.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Tsuyoshi Saito Encountered His Future Wife

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I made up a first name for Saito. Yes, I made assumptions about him being actually married, since they don't really say so explicitly in the movie. Yes, I made assumptions about him being in the yakuza. Yes, I did way too much research into an appropriate last name for his future wife (there was a Watanabe leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi in the relevant time period). Yes, Misaki's name means "beautiful bloom". Yes, this is totally me giving Saito an awesome wife.

1\. The Time He Heard About Watanabe's Daughter

"Anything else?" he asked at the close of a Monday morning meeting.

Minato shuffled his papers, squinting through his glasses at his own spidery handwriting. "Nothing major. Though there is some movement around the Yamaguchi-gumi. All internal, nothing to worry about. One of the bosses, Ogino Hiroshi, decided to make a power play and had a rival's daughter kidnapped as she was leaving a party."

Saito shook his head. He'd heard of Ogino. Not the brightest man in the family. Sometimes he feared for the future of Japan, with as many idiots as there seemed to be about. He sighed. "How messy did it get?"

"Surprisingly, not very." Minato sat back, folding his fingers over his stomach. "Two hours after the kidnapping, the daughter called her father and said she needed to be picked up. When his people found her, she was calmly sitting outside a warehouse, still in her dress, with four dead kidnappers inside. She'd evidently killed one man by stabbing him through the eye with the heel of her shoe, took his gun, then shot the rest as they tried to subdue her."

The room was dead silent for a long moment, then Tatsuya guffawed from the end of the table, snerking that obviously Ogino needed to recruit a better class of thug if they couldn't deal with one girl.

Saito personally thought that the girl's success might have more to do with her willingness to shove a high heel into a man's brain than the thug's skills, but he didn't say so.

Later, in private, he asked Minato about her. Minato raised an eyebrow but brought him the file. Watanabe Misaki, 21 years old, daughter of Watanabe Ryosuke, recently graduated from college with a degree in journalism and due to start a job with the Japan Times the next month. Minato asked dryly if Saito-san would also like her blood type. Saito expressed equally dry disappointment that such information was not already in her file, and Minato bowed deep enough to be mocking and promised to remedy this immediately, Saito-san.

\------

2\. The Time He Brought Her Flowers

On their first official meeting (in public and properly chaperoned, of course), he brought her roses.

Watanabe Misaki was a lovely young woman, with shoulder-length hair fashionably cut, a trim figure in a simple light blue dress and stole, and bright brown eyes that watched everything. Her shoes, he noticed, were sensible for a stroll in the park and had no heel to speak of.

Her face fell a bit at the sight of the roses, her smile a touch forced. Given her name, he imagined that she'd had a lot of potential suitors bring them for her.

"Ah. Thank you," she said politely, leaning back slightly. "Unfortunately, I am allergic to flowers, Saito-san. I would take them, but I doubt you'd want me to be sneezing all through our walk."

He smiled. "Fortunately, then, these flowers will be kinder to you." He broke off a leaf with a sharp crack by way of explanation.

She stepped forward, peering closer and reaching out curiously. Her perfume was light, vanilla and musk. She traced one finger along a pink petal and laughed. "Is it...?"

"Candy, yes. I had heard that you were allergic to flowers, but I thought it rude to bring you nothing, Misaki-san."

She looked up at him, and that close he could see the slight smile quirk one corner of her mouth. "I see. You've done your homework, then, Saito-san?"

"Tsuyoshi, please. And I certainly tried, yes."

"Really?" He could see her relax slightly, taking the sugar roses carefully, though her eyes were on him, direct and measuring. Challenging. "How interesting."

As they walked, they determined that the roses were so sickeningly sweet as to be nearly inedible. Mischievously ("With your permission, of course, Tsuyoshi-san"), Misaki left them with a group of children who devoured them like starving wolves before their mother could make it across the playground to scold them. Saito chuckled at the mother's stern frown as they walked away.

\--------

3\. The Time They Almost Burned Down the Building During a Blizzard

Misaki looked mournfully out the window. "We're not making it to the restaurant, are we?"

Saito peered over her shoulder. The cars outside, including his, were covered in snow, the opposite side of the street obscured by a curtain of white. "I suppose not. It really doesn't look safe."

She sighed, letting the curtain fall back. "And I was so looking forward to dinner."

Saito, for his part, had been looking forward to showing her off in that tight black dress, but the game of sexual tension they'd been playing was too subtle for him to say so. "We could order in?" he suggested.

She looked outside doubtfully, and he said, "Ah. We can _try_ to order in, then?"

A half an hour later, when every restaurant around had either not picked up or laughed at the idea of going out in the storm, the two of them were left to peer at the contents of Misaki's mostly-empty cupboards. "You," Saito said, "don't cook, do you?"

Misaki tilted a smile over at him. "Do you?"

"Of course not. That's what cooks are for."

"Exactly."

"I notice that we are distinctly cookless, though."

Misaki shrugged. "Hana had a family emergency. Sick sister. She left me some things to heat up, but I had the last for lunch, and _was_ expecting to go out to dinner tonight...." She poked about in the cupboard a bit more and laughed, pulling out several containers of instant ramen. "I forgot I had these. I loved them when I was a kid." She shook one in Saito's direction enticingly.

Saito made a face. "Surely we can do better. There is rice. There is chicken in the freezer. There are eggs. There is..." he waved a hand at another cupboard. "...every spice known to man."

Misaki's smile was amused. "Feeling ambitious, are you?"

"It is cooking, not rocket science. We are two highly intelligent people. Surely we can figure this out."

Two hours later, as Saito considered shooting the smoke alarm and cracked open the window to let the blizzard wind swirl the smoke away, Misaki sat down at the kitchen table and laughed and laughed. Saito leaned against the window, watching her, and felt his irritation melt away.

"So," Misaki said, wiping her eyes. "Ramen?"

He held up his hands, admitting defeat. "Ramen."

Dinner was not _only_ ramen, but also the two bottles of sake that Misaki had in her pantry. When the power went out, the television flickering dark and silent on its warnings about weather emergencies and record snowfall, Misaki dragged blankets and pillows out of a closet for him. The idea had been that he would sleep on the couch and she in the bed, but somehow instead they ended up both on the couch, Misaki passed out and curled into his side. Saito remembered tucking the blankets in around her, then nothing more until morning crashed into his head with a hammer of sunlight and the jangle of keys in the door. Misaki's cook returned to find the two of them cocooned in blankets on the couch, both still fully clothed for their aborted night out.

Saito waved over Misaki's still-sleeping head. Hana shook her head fondly and headed for the kitchen. Saito considered warning her about the mess they'd left but figured that she'd find it soon enough.

\---------

4\. The Time He Was Actually Nervous

The restaurant was exquisite. The dinner was superb. The weather was cool and clear, the moon hanging like a lantern over the sea.

She was suspicious. He could tell by the quirk to her smile. She probably knew. He would have been disappointed in her if she had not known. Somehow knowing that she knew didn't make this any easier.

He took a deep breath. "Misaki-san," he said, turning, and the moonlight falling over her face, shadowing her eyes and highlighting the curve of her smile, made the rest of the sentence catch in his throat.

"Yes," she said. It wasn't a question. She squeezed his hand, taking his other and pulling him closer, so he could feel the warmth of her breath as she whispered against his lips, "Yes."

"Oh, good," he murmured.

Her mouth tasted of chocolate and her delighted laughter of wine.

\----------

5\. The Time They Discussed the Prenuptial Agreement

"You don't really expect me to be a virgin, do you?"

Saito coughed. She had deliberately waited until he was drinking, he was positive of it. That little smile betrayed her. He coughed again. "Do I...." He stopped. Did he? He couldn't imagine Misaki not doing whatever she wanted whenever she wanted and propriety be damned. But...would he offend her if he said _no_?

She chuckled behind her tea, eyes crinkling. "Don't look like that. It's not a trick question."

"It does not matter," he said. Which didn't answer the question, and the lift of her eyebrow said that she knew it. He reached out, his hand brushing hers on the table. "I want _you_."

She smiled, and he knew that that had been the right answer.

Still, there was some justice to be had here. He waited until she sipped again. "Do we expect each other to be faithful?"

Misaki raised an eyebrow at him. Which wasn't as good as inhaling her tea, but he could only have hoped for such a dramatic response. She put down her cup. "That depends," she said, "entirely on what you mean by being faithful."

"Perhaps we need a definition, then," he suggested.

"My thought exactly." She sat back, the toe of her pump tapping against the table leg. "I don't expect monogamy...but I do expect that you give me and our children every due respect. I expect you to keep any extra-curricular activities...discreet."

Saito breathed a little easier. Misaki was the most frighteningly attractive and compatible woman he'd ever met on several accounts. He didn't want to disappoint her, but he knew himself and his desires too well to think that he wouldn't, should she demand too much. "Of course," he said. "Fun is one thing. Family is quite another."

She nodded, apparently satisfied. She reclaimed her tea. "Also, I expect them to pass your background check _and_ mine."

Saito couldn't help a fond smile. "Watching my back, Misaki-san?"

She smiled back. "Of course, Tsuyoshi-san. We will be married. What kind of wife would I be if I didn't make sure your lovers are trustworthy?"

"I will appreciate your efforts on my part."

"Of course," she sniffed, sipping again. "I expect that you will do the same for me."

His chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth. "Of course," he said. "Only the best lovers for _my_ wife."

Her smile turned positively catlike.


End file.
